


A Quiet Closure

by WorryinglyInnocent



Series: Homeward Bound [11]
Category: Lost
Genre: AU, Canon Divergence, Fix-It, Gen, Oceanic Six Claire, season 4, season 5, season 6
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-31
Updated: 2018-03-31
Packaged: 2019-04-16 09:04:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,983
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14161413
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WorryinglyInnocent/pseuds/WorryinglyInnocent
Summary: The final part of theHomeward Boundseries, in which Claire left the island in the season four finale and became part of the Oceanic Six, raising Aaron herself.On the island as they ready the Ajira plane to leave the island for good, Jacob speaks to the remaining candidates and a decision is made, as the rest of them work to return home and live out the rest of their lives.





	A Quiet Closure

It’s the same situation as it was the previous night, but the high tension in the air is even more palpable as they sit around their fire waiting for Jacob. Everyone is restless, knowing that Locke and Desmond are on the main island and Locke is getting ready to do whatever it is that he’s going to do, and they’re all on this other island getting ready to escape. It’s a waiting game and a matter of time, seeing who’s going to leave the island first. Frank is going over the plane with a fine-tooth comb and a torch with a rapidly dying battery, working out all the repairs that need to be done before the plane is airworthy again. It’s not going to be easy, but at least they only have to get it as far as Guam.

Presently Richard stands up. He’s looking off into the middle distance, and it seems like he can see something that the others can’t.

“Ben, I think we ought to go and help Frank with the plane,” he says suddenly. “Miles, Ilana, you too.”

* * *

 

They’re about to protest - Frank had categorically said that he didn’t want any distractions whilst he was working - but then a figure comes into view just outside the circle of light from the fire, and Claire realises that Richard is purposefully leaving them alone so that Jacob can speak with his candidates in peace. She wonders if she ought to join them, crossed out and no longer eligible as she is, but Hurley’s hand on hers keeps her sitting where she is.

Jacob enters the light. He doesn’t need to introduce himself, they all know who he is despite Hurley being the only one who’s seen him.

He sits in their circle, and he explains everything. The names in the cave, the office of island protector that must be passed on if they stand any chance of defeating Locke, actually Jacob’s long-deceased brother. Claire thought her own complicated familial situation was bad, but that one takes the cake.

One thing keeps tugging at the back of her mind.

“James said that my name was crossed out,” she says. “Along with all the people who’ve died.”

“It was when you came back to the island without Aaron,” Jacob explains. “When you were on the island before, you didn’t have such an incredibly strong bond to anyone or anything that wasn’t here. None of you were living happy lives,” he points out to the gathered group. “You were all running away from something. But Claire, now you have Aaron off the island, and a happy life there, something that tethers you away from here. You didn’t come back to the island for something here, but for something you left behind off it.” He shrugs. “It’s just a line of chalk on a wall. If you want it, it’s yours. But the bond between mother and son is one that shouldn’t be broken.”

Claire shakes her head. “No,” she says. “No, I’m leaving and I’m getting home to Aaron. I was just curious, that’s all.”

The gathered group is silent, contemplating all that they’ve just been told.

Then, two voices speak in unison.

“I’ll do it.”

Everyone looks at Jack and Kate, and they in turn look at each other, each trying to dissuade the other with just their eyes alone. This clearly was a spur of the moment decision on both their parts, no conferring, no phone-a-friend.

“Jack....”

“I need this,” he says. “It’s clear to me now. I need to do this. I need the island. That’s why I came back. I realised that I needed to be here more than I needed to be out there, and if I can protect the island now, then that’s what I want to do. What about you?”

“I’ve been running my whole life. I need to stop somewhere, and it might as well be here, protecting something that’s so much bigger than me and that needs my help. These last few years, being unable to leave LA… It hasn’t felt like home. I think because I never chose it, it was chosen for me. So if I’m going to stop running and make a home somewhere, I want it to be somewhere that I chose. And all the strangeness of this place aside, it’s somewhere that I could stay. Somewhere that I could call home.”

The gathered group looks to Jacob.

“I guess there’s no reason why you couldn’t share the task, if it’s what you both want,” he says. “There’s strength in numbers, after all, and you’ll need that strength if you’re going to stop my brother.”

Jack and Kate nod.

“We’ll do it together.”

They need to go back to the main island in order to complete the transition and make it official, and the next few minutes are taken up with goodbyes. No matter what happens, this is likely to the last time that they will see Jack and Kate for a long time, even if not forever. There’s a finality this time and a sense of farewell that they never got before. When they left the island on the freighter the first time, there was no fond farewell, no tearful goodbyes exchanged. There hadn’t been time, and they hadn’t known that they would be separated by so far for so long. Now, the knowledge of it is all too real.

“Tell my mom…” Jack begins, all ready to give Claire a heartfelt message to pass on to her step family, but he breaks off, shaking his head. “Just tell her whatever feels right. Or nothing at all.”

Kate hugs her tightly. “Say hi to Aaron from Aunty Kate,” she says. “Tell him I’m sorry I never got to see him when he was growing up, but I’m gonna miss you both so much anyway.”

The farewells can be dragged out no longer, and Kate and Jack board the boat with Jacob, sailing off towards the main island. The group stays at the shoreline and watches them go until they’re completely out of sight.

No-one says anything for a very long time.

X

As day breaks, so all hell breaks loose.

The island is dying and disintegrating beneath them. It’s all hands on deck to get the plane fixed and ready. There’s a deafening and sickening thud as Widmore’s sub succumbs to the rolling waters and the fissures opening in the ocean bed. At least they don’t have to worry about Locke leaving on that.

Claire sees Ben racing away from the plane, down towards the shoreline where the outrigger that he arrived on the previous evening is being battered about but is miraculously still seaworthy.

“What are you doing?” she exclaims, running after him. “You’re running away? Where are you going to go?”

Ben just points the retrieved paddle at the main island.

“I’m going to help Jack and Kate. I’m not leaving the island, it’s the only place I’ve ever been able to call home,” he says. “I’m not getting on that plane. I’m staying here. If the island’s going down, I’ll go down with it, and if I can take Locke along with it then all the better.”

Claire is surprised when Ilana comes over and picks up the other outrigger paddle.

“I’m staying too,” she says. “I owe it to Jacob. He saved my life. I couldn’t save his, but I can help to protect his legacy.”

Claire helps them to push off the little boat into the choppy sea, and despite the crashing waves, they keep paddling stoically towards the main island.

There’s no time to watch them go, and she rushes back to help with the plane.

Just as the plane is gearing up to leave, the tremors seem to stop. Did they do it? Were Jack and Kate victorious and was Locke defeated? Is the island safe again?

In that moment, strapping herself into the Ajira seat that she sat in on her first journey in this plane, Claire doesn’t care. They’re leaving, finally, and they’re not coming back. This part of her life is over. She will always mourn those they lost here. She will always remember Jack and Kate, and everyone else that they left behind.

But she knows that she doesn’t have to come back, and she doesn’t have to worry anymore.

As the plane takes off, there’s a cheer all around the cabin, and Claire closes her eyes.

Almost home.

X

“Mum?”

_“Claire? Sweetheart, are you all right? Where are you?”_

“Would you believe I’m in Guam?”

_“After the few days that I’ve had, I’ll believe anything. Are you all right, are you safe?”_

“I’m fine. Where are you? Are you back in Sydney or still in LA?”

_“We’re home in Sydney, we’re absolutely fine. I don’t know what kind of people you found on that island, but they really need to work on their social skills. I don’t care how polite they are, kidnapping is bad etiquette in any circumstances!”_

Claire has to laugh at that.

“I’ll see you soon, Mum. I’ll let you know what flight I’ll be on.”

_“Is this it?”_  Carole asks.  _“Is it all over now?”_

Claire looks around the Others’ Guam safehouse, at all the survivors of their second trip to the island. It’s a hive of activity, with Richard in charge and organising passports and connecting flights for everyone who’s technically dead. Claire doesn’t think he’s been off the phone since they landed.

“Yeah, Mum. It’s all over now. There’s nothing to worry about anymore.”

There’s nothing left to fear. The island is in safe hands and Claire knows that Jack and Kate will keep it going and won’t resort to orchestrating plane accidents when they need a little help. It’s all over at last, and Claire can finally return to the life that she had been plucked out of three years ago.

It’s done.

X

The trip from Sydney to LA holds no fear for Claire now. She knows that the island has no need of her and she knows that she’s safe. Aaron sits quietly in the seat beside her watching the in-flight movies, and Claire just sits back and thinks about what awaits her in the city when she gets there. It’s hard to believe that just over a year ago she was making this same journey, so scared she couldn’t stop shaking, holding her mother’s hand so tightly that she almost cut off the circulation. Things had been different then. She had been going to an unknown, into a world of upheaval that would have weighed heavy on her even if she had not ended up going back to the island.

Now, she is hopefully going forward into happiness. She wasn’t sure whose idea the trip was, there was so much discussion and so much back and forth about it amongst their entire group, but she thinks that it was probably Hurley. He has always been the best at keeping up everyone’s morale, and the best at making an effort to keep in touch with everyone, especially at the times when Claire just wanted to hide away from the world and pretend that it never happened.

She knows that she can never forget it. The time that she spent on the island was too important for her to sweep under the rug. She might not like to remember it, but it changed her as a person, and made her into the strong young woman that she is today. Maybe if she had not been forced to fight for her and Aaron’s survival, she would not have become the fighter that she is now. She certainly wouldn’t have Aaron to show for it, and she could not imagine a life without her son. She wonders what she would have done in the end, if she had given him up, but all she can come up with is that her life would have been just the same as it had been before the crash, and she doesn’t want that.

A small part of her also can’t help but think that if it hadn’t been for the island, her mother might still be in her coma and those conversations that had cleared the air between them and lightened the burden of her grief and guilt might never have happened.

And of course, if it hadn’t been for the island then she would never have met the strangers whom she has come to call friends.

Hurley is waiting for her in the arrivals hall when her plane lands, and Aaron runs over to him, beaming.

“Hey Uncle Hurley!”

“Hey, Aaron! I swear you get bigger every time I see you. You must be like, 6’2’’ now. How old are you again?”

“Four! I’m nearly five though.”

Claire has to laugh at that. Aaron has been four for all of three weeks and is already proudly proclaiming himself nearly five.”

“Yeah, you’re way too tall to be nearly five.”

Aaron just grins, and Hurley greets Claire with a hug. Although she’s happily settled in Sydney, travelling to LA feels like coming home in a way, because so many of the people she knows and loves are based there. A home from home. She keeps wondering about making a permanent move; she visits a few times a year to catch up with people, but she doesn’t really want to uproot Aaron just yet. Maybe in the future.

Hurley takes them back to his house and they get settled in; his mother, however formidable she might seem, has taken to Aaron as if he were her own grandson. Every time Claire sees her, Carmen sighs that Aaron is probably the closest thing she’s going to get to an actual grandson if Hurley doesn’t get his act together. Claire just laughs and Hurley just buries his head in his hands.

It’s late in the evening when they leave the house, Aaron too excited to have taken a nap beforehand and now bouncing around in his seat in the back of Hurley’s car. Hopefully he won’t be too cranky later.

“Is everyone here?” Claire asks.

“Yeah, I think so. Sun and Jin and Ji Yeon’s flight just got in and they’re coming straight from the airport, and Sayid said that Desmond and Penny docked at the waterfront this afternoon.”

It’s going to be strange, seeing everyone together in one place again, and Claire is quiet and contemplative as they make the journey down to the waterfront. This is where it all began, a year ago now.

Well, that’s a lie of course. It all began far, far before then, when Jacob decided that they were all candidates to take over from him and began to set their lives on the courses that they would take to reach the island. But Claire feels that here on the waterfront was where things began to end. This was where that final journey back to the island began, the journey that catalysed what will be the entire rest of her life. Everything up until then feels just like preparation for that moment.

There’s no-one else there when she, Hurley and Aaron arrive, and Claire likes that. It’s nice to just stand with the ocean breeze in her face and contemplate what happened. Aaron is quiet by her side, holding her hand tightly, as if he can feel that something important is happening. Then he sees little Charlie coming up from the boat docks with his parents and runs off to say hello, and the two boys are soon running up and down the front together.

It’s good to see Desmond and Penny again, especially since they’ve been able to settle down without fear of Penny’s father kidnapping Desmond again. They still sail a lot; after three years of living on the waves it’s got into their blood and will never really leave, but it’s good to know that they can thrive on dry land if they wish.

James and Sayid arrive not long after the Humes. Remembering the start that they had on the island, Claire might think that it’s miraculous that the two of them became and remained such good friends, but then again, ending up stranded in the seventies together was probably enough to bring even the bitterest of enemies together. Jin, Sun and their daughter are the last to arrive, and then everyone is talking, remarking on how much the kids have grown, and how happy and peaceful everyone seems to be since they finally left the island.

No-one really sees Jack and Kate arrive. Claire just notices them walking along the waterfront towards the group. They’re hand in hand, and the sight of it makes Claire smile. The time alone on the island without life-threatening crises every five minutes and without pretences to uphold has been good for them, letting them really work on their relationship.

They’re doing well. Ben’s been showing them the ropes for getting resources to the island and they’re starting to rebuild. The few Others that remained were wary of the change in leadership at first, but have got used to it now.

Gradually, the conversation dies down, and the group falls into a comfortable silence, looking out in the moonlight over the ocean towards the island that they cannot see but know is out there somewhere, safe and protected under Jack and Kate’s watchful eyes.

As much as Claire might not want to admit it at times, she does feel at home here, among these people. The time she spent on the island, however traumatic, was undoubtedly the most important time of her life, and these people that she spent it with are the most important people she will ever meet.

Claire moves in a little closer to Hurley’s side, and squeezes Aaron’s hand. She’s amongst friends, family, and she couldn’t be happier.


End file.
